Zhang, Zinie;
(2024)
Navigating Media Use: Chinese University Students and their Parents on WeChat.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
In the current Chinese society, mobility, especially among the young population, has become an important social phenomenon. The attraction of more academic opportunities and the bright futures of employment have pressured young people to move, not only across cities within the country, but also beyond international borders. As a result of this intense mobility, it has become increasingly prevalent for Chinese families to face the challenges that trans- locality brings to their family relationships. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the increasingly important social phenomenon of trans-local families, this thesis delves into the mobile lives of 20 Chinese families consisting of university-aged children and their stay-at-home parents through innovative digital ethnography methods, including digital diaries and post-diary interviews. For their trans-local family lives, this thesis critically assesses them on three layers. Firstly, the study identifies the co-presence practices of separate family members who engage in media affordances to gain a sense of 'being together', and a taxonomy is developed that includes synchronous media co-presence practices and asynchronous media co-presence practices. Further, this research has found that the intimate experiences that parents and children gain during media co-presence practices are sophisticated. These intimate experiences are theoretically grouped into three types of together, being together, alone together, and absent together. Finally, by assessing the power dynamics reflected in the mobile co-presence practices of parents and children, this thesis uncovers the fact that parents construct a Media Panopticon in the family sphere through media affordances, and the mechanisms by which this structure operates in Chinese trans-local families. In addition, three types of media panoptic schemes exercised by parents on their children in the media panopticon, power over, power with and power to, are recognised, as well as the impact of these schemes on the functioning of trans-local families is thoroughly discussed. Overall, this thesis has developed a detailed insight into how family relationships are maintained in a trans-local setting through in-depth access to the everyday family life of trans-local families.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Navigating Media Use: Chinese University Students and their Parents on WeChat |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10189505 |
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